Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a plating method for a printed layer, and more particularly to plating method forming a printed layer on a predetermined region of a surface of a work piece through printing electrical conductive material on the predetermined region and forming a plated layer through plating the printed layer and the surface of the work piece to prevent the printed layer from falling off.
Description of the Related Art
Plating is a common industrial process to beautify surfaces of a metal product. However, surfaces of plated metal products usually have monotonous metallic color, and thus they cannot satisfy aesthetical requirement. For aesthetical requirement or advertisement, some texts or figures are sometimes printed on the plated metal product. Therefore, a printing process is performed after the plating process.
In a conventional process, surfaces of metal work pieces are plated and a printed layer is afterwards formed on the plated surfaces through ink printing. The printed layer protrudes from the plated layer and is thus easily damaged or scratched off by a hard object or a foreign body.
In another conventional process, a printed layer is formed on surfaces of metal work pieces through ink printing before the metal work piece are plated. In such a process, the metal work piece may oxidize in the printing step before the plating step. Since the oxidation is not easily observed by eyes, is often causes a high defect rate. Even the oxidized product is processed by anti-oxidant, the printed layer still easily falls off during the plating process.
In addition to the drawbacks described above, products manufactured by the conventional process often have monotonous texts or figures.